Photosensitizing carrier proteins for photoinducible RNA interference.

RNA interference (RNAi) is being widely explored as a tool in functional genomics and tissue engineering, and in the therapy of intractable diseases, including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Recently, we developed a photoinducible RNAi method using photosensitizing carrier proteins, named CLIP-RNAi (CPP-linked RBP-mediated RNA internalization and photoinduced RNAi). Novel carrier proteins were designed for this study to establish a highly efficient delivery system for small interfering RNA (siRNA) or short hairpin RNA (shRNA) and to demonstrate light-dependent gene silencing. In addition, the results suggested that the dissociation of the siRNA (or shRNA) from carrier proteins in the cytoplasm is a critical event in CLIP-RNAi-mediated gene silencing.